Everything is designed.

There used to be a caveat to this statement of "except nature." However, with the onset of genetic engineering, we even have ways of influencing the design of nature as well.

With this new power, we need to think deeply about the intention behind design. Architect Bill McDonough advocates for design that is "delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just [for the] world, with clean air, clean water, soil and power — economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed, period." He reminds us that "design is the first signal of human intention."

As design educators, we prepare designers to understand, untangle and fix systems. And now we should be teaching them how to mitigate the harmful impacts to our future. The start of any design project begins with asking the right questions. Compelling clients to take risks that will lead to transformational innovations and fix the broken linear system of production.

Designing for a different purpose

Traditionally designers often work quickly to satisfy a client’s design brief by first researching benchmarks, innovating on emerging trends, pushing to gain market share and reaching price points and margins. All of this is done while meeting compliance and safety standards and staying on brand. Our passions for getting products to market may overshadow the need to carefully study the interconnected systems and plan for the long-term. Consider, for instance, the end-of-life cycle of solar panels designed in a way that cannot be disassembled for material reuse. Or the opening of a new sports venue that does not include the infrastructure for fully accessible transit. These are design oversights.

Over the course of their career, a single designer will work on hundreds of projects and products. Designers have immense power, both positive and negative, on the world.

At times, the best intentions may miss market targets. Take, for example, a class I lead with the Rotary International relief team to distribute gravity-fed water filters provided by Cascade Engineering into a Haitian batey (also known as a shanty-town) in the Dominican Republic. Some families who received the water filters used the filter component for draining rice rather than for making clean drinking water as was it designed. The filter no longer benefitted the families as it was intended to clean water. The project in some ways was a waste of time, money and resources if the filters were not used as intended. The family members should have been consulted in the design, installation or purpose of the filters.

We need to think more critically through every decision of the design process from a sustainability and social equity lens by asking the right questions such as; how are materials sourced? Where will the materials go when they’re no longer needed? And have all voices been included in the design’s co-creation?

Designers should evaluate every possible user, in every market location, over the life of the item, deliberately extending the lifecycle of products we design and ensuring equitable and inclusive usability. The entire product journey should be mapped carefully from choosing safe chemistry to keeping all materials out of the landfills and making sure the workforce is safe and fairly paid. We will have made good design decisions when the earth and its environment are protected, reasonable profits are protected and solutions are regenerative.  

So, what needs to change to achieve a new design process that takes sustainability into account? Design methods should include stakeholder co-creation through community engagement or targeted user research studies. Designers should work with experts in accessible design to ensure products take minors into consi